← Aṅguttara NikāyaAN8.1Numbered Discourses 8.1SuttaCentral (Bhikkhu Sujato translation)Select any verse to keep it — saved passages go to your Dhamma Deck, the same one the app uses.Numbered Discourses 8.11. LoveThe Benefits of LoveSo I have heard.At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery.There the Buddha addressed the mendicants,“Mendicants!”“Venerable sir,” they replied.The Buddha said this:“Mendicants, you can expect eight benefits when the heart’s release by love has been cultivated, developed, and practiced, made a vehicle and a basis, kept up, consolidated, and properly implemented.What eight?You sleep at ease. You wake happily. You don’t have bad dreams. Humans love you. Non-humans love you. Deities protect you. You can’t be harmed by fire, poison, or blade. If you don’t reach any higher, you’ll be reborn in a realm of divinity.You can expect these eight benefits when the heart’s release by love has been cultivated, developed, and practiced, made a vehicle and a basis, kept up, consolidated, and properly implemented.A mindful one who developslimitless loveweakens the fetters,seeing the ending of attachments.Loving just one creature with a hateless heartmakes you a true person.Sympathetic for all creatures,a noble one creates abundant merit.The royal potentates conquered this landand traveled around sponsoring sacrifices—horse sacrifice, human sacrifice,the sacrifices of the ‘casting of the yoke-pin’, the ‘royal soma drinking’, and the ‘unimpeded’.These are not worth a sixteenth partof the mind developed with love,as all the constellations of starsaren’t worth a sixteenth part of the moon’s light.Don’t kill or cause others to kill,don’t conquer or encourage others to conquer,with love for all sentient beings,you’ll have no enmity for anyone.”